Insularisation and isolation? Aligning the Mesolithics of Britain and Ireland

The chronological and typological frameworks used to describe the Mesolithic of Ireland and of Britain have developed along divergent paths. This has encouraged scholars to treat the areas as distinctive—especially in the Irish context, where changes within the Mesolithic are often understood as insular, sui generis developments. On the basis of two independent reviews of the chronologies of the Mesolithic in Britain (Conneller and colleagues) and Ireland (Warren and colleagues), we highlight considerable similarities between the areas—not least in social processes driving material changes. On this basis we propose aligning the terminology used for the Mesolithic across these islands.